The Waiting list as of 2008....

The Nova Scotia Hearing and Speech Centre's Cochlear Implant Program waiting list is getting longer and longer... and most of them are New Brunswickers! Can you believe that, there's more NB'ers than Nova Scotians on the list!!! The program has received alot of referrals, and the waiting time is getting longer now... it can go up to 2 years or more before you finally can get the surgery, if you are a candidate.

Wow!!

Until next time..... :)

Wicked!!!................

On Friday, November 7th, Raymond & I decided to take a day trip to the Miramichi to visit some relatives. We have not been "up home" for quite a while, so it was due time. It rained the whole time, but a nice trip in overall.

Down in Napan, we dropped in to visit Grammie B. first and she certainly was surprised to see us and very happy too. Stayed for two hours with her. I am excited to say this part... so may as well spit it out now. In the past few years, I have had alot of difficulty to carry on a conversation with Grammie as I was not hearing her as well as I did in the past. Plus she was not talking clearly with me like she used to, and she kept turning her head down or away from my line of vision. She is 92 years old now, so it is part of her aging process.

So hearing her on this day was the first time with my CI, and to my complete surprise, I was able to hear her voice really clearly. I had forgotten on how low she spoke. We had great conversation for the entire two hours and I enjoyed every minute of it. Raymond really enjoyed this too, as it was his first time to hear her voice with his CI. He found that her voice was much clearer than what he heard with his old hearing aid. He said it was less work to listen to her now.

At Grammie's house, I went upstairs for a minute and I heard something off a distance and recognized it to be a clock ticking. So I set myself to find it and it was in Grammie's bedroom on the wall and man-oh-man, it was loud!!!!!! I was so amazed at the loudness of it, and thought to myself, "How in the heck can Grammie sleep with that thing running???" It is much louder than the one I have here at home. I told Grammie about my wee adventure upstairs and she laughed so hard.

Next, we visited my grandfather down in Napan Bay for a couple of hours. I was able to hear his voice clearly as well, but he runs his words together, or more like mumble to me, so I had great difficulty in understanding him at times. Raymond had no problems at times, but had to struggle couple of times to really listen to him. Papa is 89 years old.

After Papa, we visited Aunt June for almost 3 hours.....when we get together, we can talk up a storm! I never really had any problems talking with June, but this time around, I was able to hear her voice more than before... so it made the conversation flow much easier.

Next pit stop was to visit Uncle Garth, but nobody was home, so off we go to visit Uncle David.... and this ended up as our last pit stop. Aunt Linda and I stayed in the house, while Raymond and David went into the men's garage, ya all know what that means. It was so funny, I just realized this AFTER the visit, more likely on the next day that Linda still continued to speak to me in her "higher than normal" volume after so many years of talking to me loudly. I guess it is a habit she soon will need to learn to adjust with me. I am sure she's the first one, but she won't be the last one.

So after seeing my relatives for the first time with my CI, made me realize it is a wonderful gadget! It works, and it is certainly SO worth it. I was extremely happy to hear Grammie's voice again so clearly. It "almost" brought tears to my eyes.

While thinking about up home.... and I felt like I was in a "timeless" zone... you know what I mean? Time stood still for a couple of years. Honestly! Things have never changed at Papa's house. I am pretty sure I have not been in the house for at least a year and half, and I felt like the last time I visited there was like a month ago. I took a "peek" in Grammie Sweezey's bedroom and nothing in there has moved or changed since she passed away 2 years ago. Just by looking in that room, you would think she was still around. I really miss her lots! :(

Ah, I am getting nostalgic.... so better end this before I bore you to death..... ;)

Until next time.....

Small update - noise reduction program and few tidbits

Tried the 2 noise reduction programs switches on my CI processor at work, and soon found out that switch #3 works best for me. It really reduces the noise level, but I do still hear the noises around me and in the background, but not as loud as it was before. I had too much simulation going on and it was making me extremely tired, and found a great difference with the noise reduction program.

However, one thing I noted with switch #3, the voices are not as clear and a little dull. That is okay as I work pretty independantly majority of the day.

Once I leave work, I go back to switch #1, which is for normal daily usage.

Last Friday, I met up with a friend of mine and she mentioned that she noticed I was talking a bit louder than a whisper now. That's good... hope it continues to improve. Or maybe it was because I had the volume down. I must check the next time someone says something about my voice level, and will check where the volume number is at.

Right now, I am having a heck of a time looking for a simple children's read-along book with a CD. They do have them in the stores, but they are more for teens, etc... I am going to drop in at Scholar's Choice/Moyer's on Monday after work to see if they have any. Keeping my fingers crossed as I would like to start practicing my listening/speech skills.

The speech therpist sent me a list of words for me to practice, and a friend will work on this with me, plus will get Mom/sister to help out as well.

Now, onward to Raymond. Really, there is not much to report from his end these days. He is doing extremely well. His CI is at the most comfortable level and he is hearing things pretty normally rather than the loudness he experienced in the previous months. Music is coming along well and he is picking up alot of words. He finally is able who the music artist is when it comes on.

Remember a few months ago, he tried out the bluetooth for his cell phone and he tried the MaxIT brand. It didn't pan out well for him, so he returned the product back to the company. Someday, not now, he will try another bluetooth thingy.

One thing we both still do not like...... is folks calling our names behind our backs testing us out. People don't realize that we DO hear the voices, but we do not realize it is for us. This has happened to me at work a couple of times, how do you expect me to hear my name with all that noise in the background, especially with the white noise?? Forget it.....

Every Wednesday night, we attend Bible Study over at the Lakeview Manor senior citizens/nursing home as they have allowed us to use their roomy chapel and large TV for our studies. There's all kinds of noises in that place!!! I can hear the buzzer's going off at the nursing station. Last week, while we were watching a session on the DVD, all of sudden Raymond and I heard a noise and I kind of looked over at Grace and shot my eyebrows upward. She laughed at me, as I am sure it was quite the sight that Raymond and I were the only ones that heard something while the other deafies watched the DVD. :)

Until next time.....

Cheryl's October 2008 mapping session

CI activated on July 29th - 3 month post-activiation mapping session:

Saw Cathy on October 23rd and it was a good session. Did a testing in the sound booth, spoke about my frustrations with sounds, and made some adjustments to my CI processor.

In the sound booth, we did the usual testing:

- audiogram testing - I am okay where I am at for now, there's more room for improvement
- sections of 4 words and CD in background saying the word, and I pick the word I think he is saying - I did good on this, 2 errors. It is noted that I have problems hearing the "s" sounds.
- simple sentences with lip-reading - fared 100% on this one.
- simple sentences without lip-reading (mouth covered) - fared 34%!!

Did you get that?? I got 34% and that is just by listening without lip-reading. That is quite the thing for me and it is awesome! Cathy was really surprised. I have taken this test several times over the past year and have always gotten 0%. With my hearing aid before the surgery and for all my previous mapping sessions with my CI... all 0%. So I consider 34% quite the achievement. I was plumb pleased with myself.

It does not mean I will improve even further, as this might be the end of it, or it may improve. Time will tell.

I told Cathy about my work noise level and on how ungodawful it is. So off she goes, made a few quick adjustments to my CI processor switches:

Switch 1 - normal, everyday usage. It is the same as switch 2 on my last mapping session.
Switch 2 - a little noise reduction.
Switch 3 - more noise reduction.

I am to try switch 2 and 3 at work to see which is best for me. Can't wait to test them out.

Will be working on speech therapy practices once I receive the exercises from the speech therapist from the same centre where Cathy works. For my listening skills, Cathy has suggested for me to try to listen to read-along books for children. Those books are hard to find. I have looked in the library and they do not have much choices for children. I will have to hit the mall one of these days, even shopping is what I hate the most :)

Date of return for another mapping session.... January 2009.

I am really frustrated with my hair, I no longer can put hair behind my right ear as the CI takes up most of the space in there. Once I do, my hair falls forward and is in the way. Argh...!!! I am seriously considering in changing my hairstyle... probably a shorter and easier style. I was supposed to do this last week, but chickened out. I have had this hairstyle for nearly 24 years, so it is really time for a change, and it ain't easy....wow!!! Someone, please hit me over the head and drag me to the hairdresser.... :)

New sounds - I actually heard the kitchen tap running while I was in the living room at a friend's house. Still hearing the other sounds I have heard for the past three months. The ticking of the clock is getting more distinct... it is so funny that I can recognize it so quickly now.

I am so thankful for the cochlear implant technology to allow me to hear things I have never heard before or have heard before but was dull. I am enjoying it all, including the frustrations. It is so worth it. Praise God.....

Until next time....

As my friend says, "My mind wanders alot...."

And my mind did wander alot this week as well........

Ever since the first time I heard the crosswalk signal sound for the visually impaired, I have been thinking.... and thought, "Wow!!" The visually impaired have it made, really!! Think about it, they have braille on the dollar bills, on the ATMs numerical keyboard, elevator buttons, etc., they even have different coin sizes, there is that crosswalk signal, audio books, etc., etc.... the list can go on. There is even a "zoom" programs for computers, which is a tool to magnify, capture, paint and write on screen. There is even a speech recognition program, etc, etc......

Folks in wheelchairs..... they have wheelchair accessible washrooms, doorways, low curbs, automatic doorbutton, there are even wheelchair accessible homes, Ability vans, etc... oh the list can go on....

I am thinking, what does the deaf have? Don't think, "Oh she is feeling sorry for herself", which I am not. I am just stating some facts. The list is pretty short compared to the ones I gave above. The population of Greater Moncton, my hometown, is 128,000 and we only have one full time interpreter, with just a few back-ups, and we have about 60 deaf people in our community.... only just one community interpreter. We don't pay for the interpreter, which is great. What else??..... we do have special alarm clocks, close captioned TV, flashing lights, Video Phone, TTY, etc., but these are used for our homes. We are lucky to have them, expensive products they are, yes, and we pay from our own pockets.....

You are probably thinking... What is Cheryl trying to say?

Compare the three paragraphs I wrote.... notice the first two paragraphs are about "things" out in town, around town, in buildings, workplace, out in public, etc.... and those things are paid by the town/city, companies, government, etc.... not a penny comes out of the visually impaired's pockets... and the person in the wheelchair's pockets as well.....

No problem to have a wheelchair accessible washroom in a workplace, and no problem to get a Zoom program for a couple of computers at work. In the past, I have asked for one simple thing at work and it was declined.... a pager or something I can have with me to warn me the fire alarm is going off. Instead I was assigned a fire buddy, for 8 years now. I don't feel comfortable with this at all, as we all work different shifts, different lunch hours, etc...

One time, the fire alarm went off and my TM was my buddy, she saw me as we "looked" at each other, so I assumed all was okay there, so I went outside with everybody. Then my TM comes to me nearly having a heart attack saying to me "where were you???" Gee......

At one of my other jobs approximately 18 years ago , I was up on the 4th floor, and the fire alarm went off and I didn't hear this one. Nobody came to get me and I was the second lone person on that floor. Luckily a person heard me working away on the computer and she came to get me..... Guess what, it was a REAL fire alarm, not a drill. I was none too pleased. Since then, I have always been nervous about fire alarms.

With my new CI, I have not heard the actual fire alarm yet, but I am sure I will hear it soon. Likely I will have a heart attack and jump off the chair!! :)) We'll see and I'll let you know when I do hear it :)

The deaf ask for a small measly thing and most of the time, they say it can't be done, where the town/city, buildings, workplaces goes to "bat" for folks with other disabilities. There might be a few handful of deaf that got lucky at their workplace, mostly they are government jobs. Um, something is wrong with this picture.....

New noise....

Hi all.... last weekend, Raymond and I went camping in Amherst, a nearby town, for the weekend. A great time had by all! Our trailers were parked by the water, so therefore it was a bit windy. Whilst inside the trailer on our first day, I could hear the wind slow down and pick up! Patty kept telling me the tree was going to fall on our trailer, ha ha.... funny lady she is.

That evening, it rained. We were all in one couple's trailer for chat and games. I could hear the rain pitter patter on the roof. It rained so hard at times and it let down at times, and then picked up again. I was able to tell my friends this, and they were amazed (they are all deaf), and they looked out the window to see the rain :) Rain is still my favourite sound of all! Just LOVE it....

On Saturday afternoon, all three couples had their quiet time, and went on our merry way. Raymond was in a dire need of a nap, so we went inside our trailer... he had a nap, I multi-tasked - watched TV, read a book and surfed on the internet. All of sudden I heard a noise which I never heard before. I listened to it so intentively (is this a word??) and trying to figure out what it was. I turned off the TV and the noise was still around. I closed the lap-top... the noise was still there!! Ugh... I went over to the fan above the stove, it was off. I looked in the bathroom, the fan was off in there too! Gee.... so I went back to sit down in the dining room to listen again.

I leaned back against the chair and crossed my arms. I looked over at Raymond's way and listened again.... it came to my realization that the noise was in sync with Raymond's breathing (his tummy rising up and down).... oh wow.... the noise was his 'snoring'!!!!! Wow, is it ever loud!!

When I hear something new, I always ask Raymond what it is, so this way, I would recognize it the next time I hear it again. With this noise on the go, I didn't have the heart to wake him up just to ask him, so discovered this one on my own. Felt good!

This afternoon, a week later, Raymond had a nap on the couch and I recognized his snoring right away. I am amazed on how loud it is!!! It is like a rough motor at times! Fourteen and half years we have been together, and I am just learning this now :)

Things are going very well. Only two things that are hellish for me are work and church. I cannot wait for the background block be placed on my on one of my CI switches. I really need this for work - big time. My appointment is on October 23rd, so I am practically counting down the sleeps......

Thanksgiving for hearing new sounds...

It is thanksgiving time, and there are many that we are thankful - and for the sounds of life around us.

We are thankful for the engineers and their leadership to invent and improve the cochlear implants we wear today.

We are thankful for the amazing doctors who put the implants in our heads and become a part of hearing world.

We are thankful that we have friends and family that supports us during our cochlear implant journey.

(copied and pasted from another website....)